15 For example, they need to return anything they have taken as security for a loan and anything they have stolen. Then if they stop doing evil and start obeying my Law, they will live.
16 Their past sins will be forgiven, and they will live because they have done right.
17 Ezekiel, your people accuse me of being unfair. But they are the ones who are unfair.
18 If good people start doing evil, they will be put to death, because they have sinned.
19 And if wicked people stop sinning and start doing right, they will save themselves from punishment.
20 But the Israelites still think I am unfair. So warn them that they will be punished for what they have done.
21 Twelve years after King Jehoiachin and the rest of us had been led away as prisoners to Babylonia, a refugee who had escaped from Jerusalem came to me on the fifth day of the tenth month. He told me that the city had fallen.